Anthropological Perspectives in Sociology

Abstract

T IS JUST over fifty years since the first permanent appointment in Anthropology was made at the School.* In the little sketch in which Raymond Firth has reviewed this period he quotes Malinowski as arguing in i939 'sooner or later, I think, we will have to include in our teaching in the School the approach of Anthropology to higher cultures, notably to modern societies. In reality this means that the methods of anthropological field work ought to be available to sociological students to carry out observations on modern problems.' Firth goes on to mention that in the post-war years co-operation with sociologists has been a regular feature of the department's programme.' I am, I suppose, a product of this tendency, for intellectually, I am indebted in equal measure to the anthropology and sociology departments of the School. It may therefore be appropriate if I pay my tribute to Malinowski's memory by commenting upon his view about anthropology's contribution to the study of modern societies. Stimulated by the success of Malinowski's own studies and the work of the Lynds in Middletown there was much talk in the 1930's and 1940's of importing anthropological methods into sociology. It was to be a one-way movement, for there was no discussion of teaching sociology to anthropologists. Many sociologists, and among them Morris Ginsberg, were at this time apt to protest about the aggressive posture of their colleagues and to insist that there was no special virtue in anthropological methods. Indeed Robert Bierstedt in the United States published an incisive review of the limitations of anthropological methods in the study of civilized societies.2 But it is equally characteristic that when Clyde Kluckhohn responded to Bierstedt's argument his first comment was a protest against the tendency to identify anthropology with the study of non-literate societies. As far back as Tylor, he insisted, anthropologists have resisted any tendency to regard their discipline as a kind of 'higher barbarology'.3 In many situations today it is more confusing than helpful to refer to